


Birth to Heartbreak

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Healing, Loss, Love, Loyalty, Miscarriage, Obsession, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 02:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14781524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Lianne and Roald's obsession with having a son gives birth to heartbreak.





	Birth to Heartbreak

Birth to Heartbreak

“Your Grace!” A hammering on his bedchamber door in the pre-dawn hours when the sky was stained so dark a blue that it bordered on black awakened Duke Gareth in the middle of a grim nightmare about the country descending into famine on his watch. As Roanna, bulging with a pregnancy that left her with no tolerance for interruptions of her strict sleep schedule, stirred beneath the comforter and mumbled a menacing threat about disemboweling Timon and eating his intestines as sausages for breakfast, Timon, blissfully ignorant of her warnings, went on shouting, “His Majesty has need of you in his chambers at once!” 

“Inform His Majesty that I will attend on him momentarily.” Gareth raised his voice to be heard through the solid oak of the door. As Timon doubtlessly raced off to deliver his message to the king, Gareth bent over his wife to kiss her temple. “Duty calls, and I must go, my dear.” 

“If the king summoned you in the dead of night, it must be urgent.” Roanna rolled over to study him with sharp eyes as he pulled his favorite dressing gown out of his wardrobe and draped it about his shoulders, letting the soft brocade soothe him as he prepared to resolve the next crisis that had gripped the realm. “You aren’t seriously thinking of wearing that wretched thing in the presence of His Majesty, are you?” 

“It’s a midnight summons, not a fancy ball.” Gareth’s lips thinned as he slipped into his shoes and hurried to the door. Fashion was the least of his concerns when his king called him in the middle of the night. “Besides, it’s brocade. Brocade is always sophisticated.” 

“It’s about as sophisticated as anything the cat dragged in for admiration.” Roanna’s mutter as she buried face in her pillow to return to sleep was just loud enough for Gareth to hear her as he shut the door and hastened down the corridor—cold as ice at this hour and dimly lit since many torches in their sconces had burned out as the night neared an end—to the royal quarters.

Even before the sentries stationed outside the doors could announce him, Gareth’s ears were assaulted by weeping he could never fail to identify as his little sister’s. Even if he were deaf, an instinctive love of her would attune him to her cries and rush him to her side to comfort her every sorrow and to protect her from any evil to which she felt vulnerable. Yet, when the guards opened the doors and admitted him to royal presence, he couldn’t run to her at once, because it was the king, not her, who had summoned him. 

“Your Majesty.” Gareth bowed to Roald, who was collapsed into a chair in the parlor outside the royal bedchamber, fingers pressed against his forehead, eyes wet and wild as oceans with an inexpressible grief that made Gareth’s heart skip a beat. 

“She had another miscarriage.” Roald sounded as broken as Lianne’s sobs. “Our bed is covered in blood but she refuses to permit the servants to change the sheets and spare her the sight. She is hysterical and won’t drink the potion Duke Baird made to steady her nerves. Nothing I’ve said is a consolation to her. In fact, every word that leaves my mouth seems to torment her more. I was hoping you might be able to calm her.” 

Before Gareth could disappear into the royal bedchamber to offer his sister what solace he could, Roald burst out, “Do you think it’s my fault that she miscarried? Do you believe that even though I tried to be supportive, perhaps I put too much pressure on her to bear an heir?” 

“No husband could have been gentler to his pregnant wife.” Gareth provided what assurance he could. Realizing that nothing could drive a man to insanity faster than an obsession with unanswerable questions, he added, “Your Majesty must remember that sometimes terrible things happen to good people, and there is nobody at fault.”

“Yes.” Roald still appeared as if he might rip his hair out in his grief. “Please tell her I’m not angry at her, and I don’t blame her for any of this. I just love her and worry about her welfare, and I want to mourn the loss of our child with her. It hurts me to have her crying alone.” 

“I will tell her.” Gareth inclined his head in acknowledgement. He was certain that Lianne already knew how much her husband loved her but perhaps hearing that truth repeated to her would be some comfort to her. A reminder of love was never amiss. 

When he flung open the elaborately carved door into the royal bedchamber, he saw Lianne hunched on the bed, curling a pillow against her breast as if it were a baby. Ladies-in-waiting bent over her, urging her to drink the potion Duke Baird had created for her and to permit the silently standing maids to change the sheets that Gareth could see were soaked scarlet. 

He wanted to cradle his sister against his chest and shield her from all harm but a harm he couldn’t protect her against had once again inflicted its damage upon her, and he was left pick up the pieces of her shattered heart. 

“Please leave us,” he ordered, observing that the ladies-in-waiting were no more effective in consoling Lianne than Roald had been. He could only hope that he would prove more of a solace to her. “Servants will be summoned to clean the sheets when Her Majesty is ready. You may leave the potion.” 

In a flicker of curtsies, the ladies-in-waiting and the maids trickled out of the bedchamber.

“All I want is a son, and all I get is bloody sheets. I imagined naming the child Jonathan because he would be a gift from the gods.” Lianne’s palm crept beneath her pillow to cup her now empty womb. “Some say it’s a dangerous presumption against the gods, a courting of disaster, to name a child before the child is born.” 

“That’s ignorant peasant superstition.” Gareth shook his head and sighed as he reached out to hug her. “The gods would never punish you for seeking to honor them.” 

“Then I don’t understand.” Lianne’s words were muffled as he drew her into his arms. “I’ve done everything the healers suggest. Exercising but not straining myself. Eating and drinking what they say. Not eating or drinking what they advise me to avoid. Getting rest and sunlight. Despite all that, this still happens to me, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what I did wrong this time.” 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Gareth held her close and squeezed her trembling hands between his own. “Sometimes things aren’t meant to be understood and tragedies occur for no reason. You can’t blame yourself for that.” 

“That’s what Roald says, that I can’t blame myself.” Lianne spoke so softly that Gareth’s ears struggled to hear her. “He doesn’t blame me for my failure to bear an heir, but I almost wish he would. His anger might hurt less than his comfort and disappointment.” 

“He loves you.” Gareth grabbed the steaming mug of Duke Baird’s potion from the nightstands and brought it to Lianne’s twitching lips. “He worries about you and wants to mourn with you.” 

“I mustn’t worry my lord husband any longer then.” Lianne’s shoulders straightened as she sipped at Duke Baird’s potion and regained her customary poise. Her quiet devotion to doing her duty—to being a good wife and queen—was reasserting itself, and Gareth felt some of the tension coiled into his own neck relax at seeing her duty cutting through her devastation, her responsibilities replacing her loss. “I must be strong for him if not for myself.” 

“You will have a strong and healthy heir to present to your husband one day,” Gareth promised her because he believed it in his bones and because he sensed it was what she needed to hear: that her obsession with having an heir to fulfill her most important obligation as a wife and queen would not always end in heartbreak. “One day you will shed only happy tears when you have your baby in your arms.”


End file.
